Discussion

Deep Creek mixes many genres: thriller, mystery, romance, and Western. It's a fast, gripping read, paced to keep you turning pages and living with the story, as it seeks to solve crimes and reconcile old grievances.

Based on copious research, the novel is real yet ghostly, inspired by the stark beauty of Hells Canyon, on the Snake River between Oregon, Idaho, and Washington in 1887-92.

To find the truth about a mass murder, three unlikely figures become a team, then a family: a middle-aged judge torn between an easy life and his beliefs; a beautiful métis woman with second sight; and a cocky Yale graduate, China-born. Their enemy: a charming, brutal psychopath who hunts them all until the very last page.

The book is based on actual events, a long-suppressed American tragedy whose victims were nearly forgotten. Deep Creek uses imaginative insight to portray how and why.